When I try to remind myself to be mindful when listening to someone, I actually lose track of what the other person is saying because then I'm not focused on the whole but just the parts of what is being said.
How can I be mindful in conversation and also be able to process what the other person is saying?
I've practiced that myself where I've been in conversation situations and somebody's waffling on and I'm just noting, you know, listening, listening or hearing, hearing, whichever one you want to use to note.
It depends on the conversation.
If you're in direct communication with someone, I think it's a little bit harder to do.
But if you're in a group conversation and there are different people talking back and forth and you're not really involved, it's more possible.
So for personal experience, it's quite a task to be communicating one-to-one and noting that you're hearing.
You could most probably regulate the noting.
So you're not saying in your mind, hearing, hearing, hearing, over and over and over again.
Just note that you're hearing and then listen to the words as the person talks.
And then if you're answering a question, then answer the question.
Yeah, it's tough.
I don't personally think or find that the noting itself gets in the way of the understanding.
But there's a lot more that goes on when you attempt to note.
You can find yourself
suppressing or forcing the mind into certain states.
You find it difficult because your mind is accustomed to reacting.
So you find yourself reacting and then trying to repress the reactions or reacting to the reactions.
And so because you're breaking it up and because it's actually a real task,
because it's not something that is comfortable for someone who's not proficient in it, it's easy to get off track.
So suddenly you'll start to think about something else and lose track of what's being said.
You'll start to think about the meditation.
Oh, am I doing it correctly?
Or even, am I understanding what they're saying?
Oh, I'm not understanding what they're saying.
And suddenly you lose it.
The noting itself still leaves room for processing.
It doesn't stop the mind from, or the brain or the mind from processing the meaning of the words.
Not necessarily.
So if your intention is to understand what is being said, you can still couple that with mindfulness.
So you're mindful of it, and then you process what is being said, and then you're mindful back about what they're saying next, and you process it, and so on.
But yeah, it's a question of what your intention is.
If your intention is just to meditate, then as Owen said, just let them rattle on and say hearing, hearing, hearing.
many times you don't really need to know what they've said unless it's an important conversation then it's a question of priorities well your priority is to process what they're saying so don't give that up don't dedicate yourself wholly to being mindful and noting the mental event of processing and cancel that as well don't get yourself too focused on
the actual sound, so that you lose the mental aspect.
I mean, the key of meditation is to purify the mind, purify the processing of the mind, not to stop it, not even to stop the mind from thinking, but to purify that process, so that thinking is only thinking.
So that there's no reaction to it.
You understand it for what it is.
So it's possible to get into a state where you just know it as sound, but it's also possible to know it just as concepts, thoughts in the mind.
This means this, this means that.
Even arahants do that, and they're always mindful.
But yeah, if you focus too much on it, especially when it's not a familiar practice, it can be
problematic so it doesn't mean to stop I would say do it back and forth and try to yes of course be mindful but you you should certainly not stop being mindful in conversation but you might want to alternate it so not always noting let yourself think let yourself process even let yourself react because you can't stop the reactions and when the reactions come just
Watch the reactions as well.
Be mindful of them.
If you're angry, say angry, angry, liking, liking, so on.
And then go back to listening.
But I think the real problem is not the mindfulness.
It's the over-focusing and repressing.
And I was in that state after I finished my first course, which didn't really go very well.
one of the teachers was talking to me, and I just said to her, I said, I can't understand what you're saying.
I said, don't come to, that's never happened to me since.
I was really in a bad way, because I was really realizing how messed up my mind was.